Public hearings planned on Vikings stadium ideas

Emerging from a meeting with Gov. Mark Dayton, legislative leaders said their next step in the ongoing Minnesota Vikings stadium talks would be to hold public hearings at the Capitol.

"What we need to be working on...is some sort of a solution that can have broad bipartisan support," and the support of the public, said Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch. "Other discussions are secondary to that."

To assess that support, she said, she and House Majority Leader Kurt Zellers are going to ask their committee chairs to begin hearings on the array of Vikings stadium ideas.

Zellers, who spoke to the media along side Koch and the Democratic House and Senate caucus leaders, appeared to back down from the strong opposition to a stadium special session that he expressed in an email to Republican members Tuesday.

"That was just my opinion," he said.

On Wednesday he said that questions of a special session were getting "ahead of ourselves on the calendar."

"You can't have a vote on a special session without having a plan," he said. "Public hearings are a great thing."

Asked repeatedly if he could support a special session this year to settle the Vikings stadium question, Zellers did not answer yes or no.